Nair inspires others to enjoy science through STEM for Fun workshops

Published 9:50 am Friday, November 4, 2016

As a kid, Milan Nair enjoyed science, but he noticed that not many of his peers felt the same way.

Now as a senior at Tesla STEM High School near Redmond, the Kirkland resident is doing what he can to inspire other young people to love science like him.

Last year, Nair partnered with the King County Library System to start STEM for Fun, a program in which he teaches a series of science workshops to kids 7-13 years old. Since the program started, he has worked up to holding workshops almost every week. They have been held throughout the Eastside as well as further south in areas such as Renton and Tukwila.

“It’s been going pretty well,” Nair said.

In addition to being able to hold workshops on a regular basis, the teen has also recruited some of his friends and classmates from STEM to help teach the workshops.

Nair currently has five workshops that cover various fields of science such as physics and chemistry. He said he works to show kids how science, technology, engineering and math could apply to the real world. Some of those real-world applications include building a model roller coaster and investigating and processing “crime scene” evidence.

Nair developed all of the workshops himself and said he has modeled them after workshops and events he attended at the library as a kid, which were “really cool to (him).”

There are also two more workshops that Nair is developing that will be covering electricity and drones.

The hour-long workshops are typically held after school at libraries, elementary schools or Boys and Girls Clubs. Nair said they usually have about 30 students participating in the workshops and they see an average of 50 percent repeat participants.

He said it feels cool to have students come back to his workshops because the first time they come, it’s most likely because their parents have signed them up. But they become more enthusiastic during subsequent workshops, or even by the end of the first one they attend.

One of the challenges Nair faced in running STEM for Fun was just getting the program started. He said being 16 at the time made it difficult for KCLS staff to trust him to be able to run workshops with upwards of 30 young students.

Outside of school and STEM for Fun, Nair works as a lifeguard for the City of Kirkland. He said the money he makes from work is how he pays for supplies and other expenses for the program.

While lifeguarding may be his method for making money at the moment, Nair said he has enjoyed teaching the younger students and teaching is on his list of possible career paths. However, he said, he also wants to do actual science, so he would ideally like to find a career that would combine the two.

The next STEM for Fun workshop will be Cool Chemistry from 4-5 p.m. on Sunday at the Bothell Library (18215 98th Ave. N.E.).

To learn more about STEM for Fun or to see when and where upcoming workshops will be, visit www.facebook.com/stemforfun.